Snoopy was typing a manuscript, up on his kennel. Charlie Brown: ‘What are you doing, Snoopy?’ Snoopy: ‘Writing a book about theology.’ Charlie Brown: ‘Good grief. What’s its title?’ Snoopy (thoughtfully): ‘Have You Ever Considered You Might Be Wrong?’

This points up a central Christian dictum: God’s truth is very much bigger than our little systems.

This week I read about Jesus ‘appearing’ to the two disciples on the Emmaus Road (Luke 24). And Paul’s words ‘He appeared also to me’ (from his great resurrection chapter, 1 Corinthians 15). I also enjoyed Did the Resurrection Happen? a conversation between Gary Habermas (conservative Christian scholar) and Professor Antony Flew – perhaps the English-speaking world’s most respected atheist, who shocked everyone in 2007 by becoming a theist. Even as an atheist Flew believed the evidence for the reality of Jesus’ resurrection was the best for any ‘miracle’ in the ancient world: though not compelling enough for him to become a Christian believer (so far as we know). He used to say, as a kind of mantra: ‘My thinking will go wherever the evidence leads…’

Now people have different views about the ‘reality’ of Jesus’ resurrection: certainly he ‘appeared’ differently to Cleopas and to Paul, as he does to each of us. Some want to argue that the only way Jesus can appear to anybody is the way he appeared to me.

Marcus Borg writes: ‘If your paradigm works for you there’s no need to change it’. Several times he puts it another way (I’m paraphrasing): ‘This is where my thinking has led me. If you’ve come to another conclusion, that’s OK.’ I like that magnanimity.

The early followers of Jesus had various views on some things (Paul and James on faith and works is a well-known example). Oxford professor John Macquarrie, in his Christian Unity and Christian Diversity, writes that diversity is just as essential as unity to the well-being of the Christian church. ‘To combine unity with freedom is a very difficult task, and the temptations to uniformity are very great… A stark unity freezes the church… A sheer diversity would dissipate the church and cause her to disappear. Only unity and diversity together can be fruitful.’

Raymond Brown, another New Testament scholar, has observed that Christians generally read Scripture to assure ourselves that we are ‘right’ rather than to discover where we haven’t been listening.

In the 1980s I wrote a little book – Recent Trends Among Evangelicals [1] – and tried to argue for a ‘minimal creed’. Here’s mine (at present): 1. One God: Father, Son, Spirit; 2. Jesus is my Lord; 3. The teachings and example of Jesus are authoritative for faith and conduct; 4. Love for, acceptance of and full fellowship with all who thus confess their allegiance to Jesus Christ; 5. Our calling to minister in the world as Jesus did – in terms of justice, compassion and evangelism.

[1] http://jmm.aaa.net.au/articles/12125.htm

Shalom/Salaam/Pax!

Rowland Croucher

****

A note shared with Facebook friends when this was posted:

I raise this not to challenge Rowland’s creed, but simply to reflect
on the diversity that was the focus of the earlier part of his post. I
am sure others will find things in my choice of words that don’t
reflect their understanding. With such a diverse range of beliefs, is
a creed useful? Furthermore, is a creed *possible*? If so, what would
it contain: what are the set of words “everyone” could stand up and
honestly and loudly proclaim?

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